Jacob's Room eBook

back to their own quarters, like beetles scurrying
to their holes, for that old woman fairly hobbles
towards Waterloo, grasping a shiny bag, as if she
had been out into the light and now made off with some
scraped chicken bones to her hovel underground.
On the other hand, though the wind is rough and blowing
in their faces, those girls there, striding hand in
hand, shouting out a song, seem to feel neither cold
nor shame. They are hatless. They triumph.

The wind has blown up the waves. The river races
beneath us, and the men standing on the barges have
to lean all their weight on the tiller. A black
tarpaulin is tied down over a swelling load of gold.
Avalanches of coal glitter blackly. As usual,
painters are slung on planks across the great riverside
hotels, and the hotel windows have already points of
light in them. On the other side the city is white
as if with age; St. Paul’s swells white above
the fretted, pointed, or oblong buildings beside it.
The cross alone shines rosy-gilt. But what century
have we reached? Has this procession from the
Surrey side to the Strand gone on for ever? That
old man has been crossing the Bridge these six hundred
years, with the rabble of little boys at his heels,
for he is drunk, or blind with misery, and tied round
with old clouts of clothing such as pilgrims might
have worn. He shuffles on. No one stands
still. It seems as if we marched to the sound
of music; perhaps the wind and the river; perhaps
these same drums and trumpets—­the ecstasy
and hubbub of the soul. Why, even the unhappy
laugh, and the policeman, far from judging the drunk
man, surveys him humorously, and the little boys scamper
back again, and the clerk from Somerset House has
nothing but tolerance for him, and the man who is
reading half a page of Lothair at the bookstall muses
charitably, with his eyes off the print, and the girl
hesitates at the crossing and turns on him the bright
yet vague glance of the young.

Bright yet vague. She is perhaps twenty-two.
She is shabby. She crosses the road and looks
at the daffodils and the red tulips in the florist’s
window. She hesitates, and makes off in the direction
of Temple Bar. She walks fast, and yet anything
distracts her. Now she seems to see, and now
to notice nothing.

CHAPTER TEN

Through the disused graveyard in the parish of St.
Pancras, Fanny Elmer strayed between the white tombs
which lean against the wall, crossing the grass to
read a name, hurrying on when the grave-keeper approached,
hurrying into the street, pausing now by a window with
blue china, now quickly making up for lost time, abruptly
entering a baker’s shop, buying rolls, adding
cakes, going on again so that any one wishing to follow
must fairly trot. She was not drably shabby, though.
She wore silk stockings, and silver-buckled shoes,
only the red feather in her hat drooped, and the clasp
of her bag was weak, for out fell a copy of Madame
Tussaud’s programme as she walked. She had
the ankles of a stag. Her face was hidden.
Of course, in this dusk, rapid movements, quick glances,
and soaring hopes come naturally enough. She passed
right beneath Jacob’s window.